


a dance for two (made different for three)

by auotn



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: AFTG Exchange, Alternate Universe - Ballet, Ballet, I hope you enjoy :'), M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-19
Updated: 2020-09-19
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:15:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26551228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/auotn/pseuds/auotn
Summary: Kevin is choking.He’s standing in the doorway of his estranged father’s house, envelope clenched tightly in his hand. He swallows thickly and watches the man move around, picking up a glass and filling it with water before stretching it out to him.(or an au where they do ballet instead of exy)
Relationships: Kevin Day/Andrew Minyard, Kevin Day/Neil Josten, Kevin Day/Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard, Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 5
Kudos: 83
Collections: AFTG Exchange





	a dance for two (made different for three)

**Author's Note:**

> hello! this is for @poorlydrawnaftg on tumblr!! hope you enjoy :D <3
> 
> heres the performance i think the three of them'd do. andrew is on the left, neil is in the middle, and kevin is on the right.  
> https://youtu.be/kQeJjno6Y2I

Kevin is choking.

He’s standing in the doorway of his estranged father’s house, envelope clenched tightly in his hand. He swallows thickly and watches the man move around, picking up a glass and filling it with water before stretching it out to him.

He seems to realize the flaw in his plan, though, and grabs the envelope in his hand before handing him the water. He does this, because, well.

His hand isn’t there anymore. His left hand, anyways. It happened five-ish weeks ago and he’s just gotten out of the hospital. He’d come straight to his father’s house after being discharged and now here he was, tongue stuck to the top of his mouth and explanation stuck in his lungs, making him feel like he’s _suffocating._

“I,” Kevin starts, and then stops. “Coach.”

Wymack raises an eyebrow at him, gesturing for him to continue.

“I’m. If you’d let me stay here…” He trails off. “Um. Read the letter, please. I think it’s important that you know that… Kayleigh Day was…” He squeezes his eyes shut, before biting the words out. 

“You’re my father, David. Kayleigh Day was pregnant with your kid 20 years ago. I’m your kid,” he says, and doesn’t dare look at the man, even as a gentle hand is placed on his shoulder.

The man looks an eternity older already, eyes heavy with guilt and something that looks a little sad. “You can stay here,” he says, sounding exhausted.

“What’s your name?” Kevin asks, staring down at the blond man in front of him. The man isn’t even looking at him, though, and is examining his nails, which are painted black and gleaming duly in the bright light of the studio.

“Minyard,” the man replies, finally glancing up at him. Kevin finds himself thinking about how the green in his eyes catches the light just a bit too long and distracts himself by looking down at the clipboard grasped in his hand.

It takes a bit of scanning to find the man’s name, considering that it was his _last_ name that he was given, but when he finds it, he also finds a paragraph of text under it. 

Kevin skims it briefly and finds that the man in front of him, Andrew Joseph Minyard, is here as an alternative to one of the other court mandated treatments, that being drugs to ‘stabilize’ his ‘aggressive behaviors.’ He glanced back up to the man, who was watching him with a bored but dangerous look in his eyes.

Kevin cleared his throat and let the subject be; it seemed sensitive, and with the way the other was twirling a knife through the air - _where did he get a knife, holy shit,_ \- and was eyeing his hand. Kevin knew better than to let anything happen to his hand, considering the fact that if something happened to it, he’d be colored useless in the studio and cast out as a member of the audience, instead, and he really, _really_ did not want that.

“Did you bring your shoes and water?” he asks, turning around. He gestures vaguely over his shoulder for the blond to follow him, glancing back once or twice because he couldn’t hear the man's footsteps. He falls back to Andrew’s pace when he realizes the man has no intention of speeding up _or_ talking to him.

The man merely nods, and that’s when Kevin realizes the knife is gone again. Andrew is looking up at him curiously, and Kevin makes a note of how small he is. He’s _really_ small.

They enter one of the private studio rooms, mirror lining each wall instead of the one in the main studio. There are also poles along the sides, as well, with cubbies taking their place on one side. There are a few cubbies filled with flats and pointe shoes, all light shades of orange to match the company’s color theme.

Andrew makes his way towards the cubbies, digging around in the bag that’d been slung over his shoulder. He pulls out his black flats and pointe shoes, even though the email Kevin himself had sent had specified _orange pointe shoes_ , and shoves the flats into the cubby. This only shocks Kevin a little bit.

“We usually start warming up in flats first, actually,” he says, only a little hesitant. He hasn’t interacted with the guy enough to be super scared, but he knows a threat when he sees one; he’s spent almost all his life with one, afterall.

Andrew just fixes him with a look before wandering over to the bars, stretching his leg up onto it.

Kevin sighs internally. He can tell that getting along with the blond won’t be necessarily easy, but he feels, deep down inside, that he can do it.

Even if things don’t turn out the way he expects.

Shortly after his first meeting with Andrew, he meets the rest of his family, who come around to help out backstage. Aaron Minyard, who is just as cold as his brother in regards to personality, avoids him like the plague, occasionally casting curious glances to the nub on his left arm. Nicky Hemmick, their cousin, is a hurricane of excitement in contrast to both of them. The day they meet, Nicky is already trying to hit on him, even though the man talks about his husband, who lives in Germany.

They’re interesting characters to say the least.

The upperclassmen, aka the people who’ve been longer than any of them, welcome the three of them with open arms and are rejected with a cold shoulder from the twins and accepted with even warmer arms from Nicky.

But for some reason, some strange, left field reason, he can’t seem to distance himself from Andrew. The cold exterior reflects his cold interior, sure, but it doesn’t catch the odd humor or hidden knowledge gleaming inside of him. Kevin finds himself enraptured in his presence.

Kevin learns from Nicky’s constant chatter that in the first week of his having custody over the twins, he’d been threatened with stabbing at least five times; when Kevin says, confused, that he hasn’t been threatened at all in his time of knowing Andrew, Nicky nearly pisses himself.

It’s also revealed to Kevin from Nicky’s chatter, that part of the reason they, him and Aaron, had followed Andrew was because of the cheap living situation Wymack offered.

Kevin hadn’t had to deal with it, because he’d lived with his father, obviously, but he did visit the apartments quite often. Apparently one of Wymack’s close friends owned them and allowed the group to stay there for $200 a month, which wasn’t bad at all considering they all mostly shared apartments and worked part-time jobs. Also considering the fact that the average apartment rent around them was in the 1000s range.

Anyways.

Kevin was walking down the street to the apartments, which he supposed was why he was thinking about it. He was supposed to introduce a new kid to the rest of the folk who were under Wymack’s wing and show him which room he’d be staying in.

Apparently the kid is staying with Andrew. Kevin said a silent prayer to whatever god out there to protect the poor boy.

As soon as he stepped off of the elevator, he was assaulted with more chaos than usual. The hallway was packed and he even saw the owner, Abby, amongst the bustling herd of people, all yelling in one direction. Since Kevin was one of the taller people, he peered over the crowd and saw- .  
Well, to be frank, he saw Andrew pinning someone against the wall, a knife, with the most raggedy looking pair of pointe shoes dangling off of them, pressed against the stomach of the person of who he assumed was Neil, the newby he was supposed to show around.

Andrew was snarling quiet words at the red-headed kid, who was snarling right back at him, though his hands were tucked carefully beside him, a detail Kevin knew Andrew didn’t miss, obvious by the way his eyes stared a bit longer than normal at his hands.

Kevin nudged Dan, one of the members of the ballet group, to the side so he could squeeze past and investigate. Dan murmured a greeting which Kevin brushed off as he strode forward towards the two. Neil saw him coming and shrunk further back against the wall, face suddenly paling as recognition flooded his eyes. Andrew also probably knew he was there, but he held his stub out to the side, anyways, visible in Andrew’s peripherals. The only indication he got that Andrew even heard him was the small tilt of his head.

“Andrew,” Kevin said, voice cautious. “Can you put the knife down?”

“Why should I?” the man rumbled, leaning closer to the redhead in front of him.

“Because you’ll go to jail if you don’t,” Kevin said, getting straight to the point, “And you’ll leave Nicky and Aaron behind. We both know you don’t want to do that.”

Andrew stood still, incredibly so, before finally backing away, reminding Kevin to drop his arm. It fell to his side and he stepped back, giving room for Andrew to leave. He watched, intrigued and only slightly worried, before turning back to the boy cowering in front of him

Hm. it was obvious why Wymack had picked him up, really.

Scars marred his face, cutting a slit over his eyebrow, intercepting one that slashed down onto his jaw and one that left a scar on his plump lips. The other side of his face was mottled with burns, warping the skin into a bumpy, pink patch of skin. His eyes were a striking, familiar blue, shaded with fear and recognition.

That’s when Kevin realized he’d seen these eyes before; twice, on two separate but not unrelated people. He’s 12 years old again, back _there_ , watching Nathaniel Wesninski twirl around the polished burgundy floors, surrounded by his old family, the one that he’d thought he left behind.

Kevin is suffocating.

“Nathaniel,” he wheezes, instinctively reaching out with his left hand- no, his left stump, and Nathaniel-Neil Junior is stumbling away, fright prying his mouth open and his legs away and suddenly the ghost, the boy, is gone, out of the door like he’d done all those years ago.

The rest of the day passes by without sight of Neil, Kevin spending the passed time in Andrew’s room kissing him, or being kissed, he isn’t sure, but it’s happening and he’s enjoying it, and then the ghost is drifting into its new home.

Andrew leans back on his heels where he’s perched over Kevin, looking over at Neil with a bored look on his face. Kevin leans up, too, to get a look at the redhead who refuses to make eye contact with him. _It’s a shame_ , Kevin thinks before shaking that train of thought off.

“Um,” Neil says, shifting his weight onto his other leg. “Which one is my room?”

“First on the right,” Andrew replies tersely. “It’s got a lock,” He adds as an afterthought.

Kevin sees tension seep out of the shorter’s shoulders, if only just a little. 

Kevin leaves shortly after that, with a quick kiss from Andrew and no word from Neil.

A week later, Neil is hanging out with Matt, Dan, and Allison when Andrew knocks on the door of the studio they’re all in. Neil tenses, remembering their last meeting, and Andrew isn’t the only one who notices,

“What do _you_ want?” Allison snarks, leaning back on her hands in a way that almost seems like she’s protecting Neil.

He doesn’t like the feeling of that.

The blond man, who’s situated himself in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest, crooks a finger at Neil and says, “You. New pointe shoes.”

Matt says something before he can respond, leaving him eternally grateful, “We’ve already bought him new shoes, since you cut his to shreds. Sure, they were ratty, but you didn’t have to do that.”

Andrew doesn’t even cast him a glance, keeping his unwavering stare on Neil, leaving him shivery and uncomfortable. He pushes himself up from where he’s sitting, hesitant in all aspects of being, and murmurs a quick goodbye to the group who’re watching him with varying emotions of worry and anger.

They don't talk on their journey to the car or on the journey in the car. Neil feels like a cat that’s been brushed the wrong way by the end of it, hair standing on end as Andrew pulls haphazardly into two parking spots, ignoring the outraged honks he gets because of it.

He follows him at a distance, hunching into himself to avoid stares as people pass. Andrew, for the first time in the nearly 30 minutes they’ve been in each other's presence, finally strikes up a conversation. An awkward one, but an attempt, at least.

“Are you homophobic, or just Kevin-phobic?” He asks, and Neil chokes on his own surprise.

“I’m sorry, what?” Neil sputters, hitting his chest, hoping to get the disbelief out of his system.

Andrew only looks at him, expectancy shining duly in his eyes.

“I’m not- I’m not homophobic,” Neil replies, feeling weak in the knees.

The blond raises an eyebrow at him.

“I’m not!” He says, raising his hands in front of him “Don’t look at me like that, it makes me nervous.”

“Okay,” Andrew says, and keeps on his mission.

They leave slightly more settled than before, with a pair of new pointe shoes and one more conversation about Neil’s Kevinphobia, which the blond tells him he finds amusing.

A week before their recital and two months after their first practice together, Kevin corners Neil after Andrew leaves to his car and tells him he’d like to kiss him.

“You want to _what_?” Neil asks, touching his lips softly, pressing down just a bit harder over the scar that’s there.

“Kiss you, Neil,” Kevin says, sounding exasperated. “If you’re okay with it, that is.”

“What about Andrew?” Neil asks, curious. “Aren’t you two, like. Together, or something?”

“Or something,” Kevin agrees and shifts closer. “Can I kiss you, Neil?”

Something flutters through Neil’s stomach, making him wonder, _Is this what a crush feels like? I don’t like it._ He finds himself nodding, though, and extends a hand to wrap gently around the back of Kevin’s neck.

Neil finds that he quite likes kissing the taller man.

It’s more time after that, a day before their recital, when Andrew texts him and tells him to come to his room.

He’s only just down the hall, so it’s not that big of a deal, but Neil finds himself anxious for this meeting.

He slips on the fox themed house shoes Matt had bought him and shuffles his way out of his room, knocking gently on the door at the end of the hall. He enters after hearing Andrew’s soft, “Come in.”

Andrew’s room is freezing and it sends a shiver down his spine.

“What is it?” Neil asks as he rubs his legs together and wraps his arms around himself.

“Come here,” Andrew says in a soft voice.

Neil hesitantly scuffs towards him, his foxes flipping around miserably on his feet.

“I want you,” Andrew says when he’s within arm distance. He holds his hands out for Neil to grab.

Neil hesitates for only a second before placing his rough hands in Andrew’s own. Thumbs immediately start tracing the scarring on the back, light as a feather and making Neil feel shivery and nervous.

“You have Kevin, though,” he whispers, as though he hadn’t been kissing Kevin consistently for nearly the past week.

“So do you,” he replies in the same tone. “You can have us both. We want you to have us both.”

Neil doesn’t even have to think it over before he’s replying with, “Will you kiss me?” in a voice not quite a murmur but not quite a whisper, either.

Soft lips on his are his answer and he loses himself in the blond’s mouth.

It’s the next day and Neil is panicking.

His uncle, his old guardian of a few weeks before he came to stay at the apartments, is in the audience, looking down at the pamphlet the stage crew had handed out. Neil’s name is on the second page of it, right under Kevin Day, and who wouldn’t look for that name? Everyone he’s ever feared is going to rise from the grave and drag him under where he belongs, tearing him apart and he’ll- .

“Neil,” Kevin says, voice gentle. “You’re alright. We’re here.”

He didn’t even hear his two boyfriends show up, standing on either side of him. Andrew places a calming, heavy hand on the back of his neck and Kevin puts a hand on his back, rubbing it gently through the thin fabric of his shirt.

He knows what they say is the truth. He trusts them.

It is the end of the night and Kevin is surrounded by everyone he loves, needs, even. Neil is to his right, nodding along to something Nicky is saying, hand gripping and releasing Kevin’s hand in irregular increments. Andrew is to his left, picking unsubtly at the gold makeup still on his face from their performance. He looks to them occasionally, making sure they’re alright and still there.

Kevin smiles and takes a bite of his salad, laughing gently as Neil bites a retort at him.

He may be choking, but he thinks, perhaps, he may be alright with it this time.


End file.
